Putty Puzzle is my current project, it's a simple puzzler with a slightly odd mechanic. There's an in game tutorial which should help you play. You mostly have to move the putty around the level to reach the goal(s) by merge, morphing and splitting it.

1) The game is no where near finished, lots of missing features and I'm sure plenty of bugs2) Typos galore3) In the applet game state is stored in cookies - so they can get wiped with browsers clear outs etc.4) Sound/Music mail fail on some systems, please post if you see this.

Theres a built in level editor which Morre has used to create a couple of the levels you'll see in game. If you feel like sharing any levels you've created (or use to show bugs ) the saved levels can be found in your home directory in a sub directory called ".putty" (home on windows = c:\documents and settings\<username>)

Any feedback appreciated, at this stage especially bugs and platform specific issues. Game play and feature ideas also appreciated. I'm afraid some of the levels are very difficult at the moment so any ideas for making things easier for the player at the start (other than creating some easier levels) would be great.

The ramping-up of difficulty needs to be a lot more gentle though. It took me ages to complete the second level (the first after the tutorial) and I couldn't make any progress at all on the third. Each new feature (different putty colours, fragile floors, sticky ceilings, etc.) needs its own very simple level by way of introduction.

One thing in particular, it wasn't obvious to me that you had to get a particular colour of putty to the goal. (How about a big, flashing arrow: "Get Blue Putty Here!")

I got an exception the first time. After clearing the cache, it worked fine. Is this because I had an old lwjgl jar in my cache? Would giving unique names to the jars fix the problem (for example, lwjgl-2.0.1.jar, natives-2.0.1.jar)?

Since the gameplay centres around cooperation between different coloured blobs, how about having a special tile/gadget that makes a blob change colour?

I know that two mouse buttons aren't a complicated control scheme, but it might be nice to have some kind of on-screen cue as to what the buttons do (especially if you're targetting a casual audience). For example, in the corner of the screen, "Left: Move/Combine, Right: Split" for the default operations, greyed-out unless the mouse is over a piece of putty, changing to "Left: Combine, Right: Cancel" or whatever as appropriate

It may just be me, but the current music sounds more shoot'em-up than puzzle game.

Some additional feedback:- Often, a single mistake means you have to restart the entire level, forcing you to press escape and choose the level again. This feels like poor design. I'd prefer it if all mistakes were recoverable, but that might not be possible.- I made a level with several conveyors and loads of putties, and they started moving INTO each other, so several putties were on the same tile. I couldn't move them after that.

1) The game gets too hard too quickly at the moment. The first row (or two) of levels will now have Frank (your guide) at the top bouncing around. If you click on him he'll give you a step by step guide to completing the levels. Hopefully this should let people have a go at learning themself, but also have a blunt solution if required.

2) Controls - tried a couple of schemes out so far, dragging and click. The most clunky thing for me is that you have to draw reasonably slowly to get the right blocks, but can't see a way round this. Any ideas on improvements, I mean as it stands it works ok for most people.

3) Related to:

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Often, a single mistake means you have to restart the entire level, forcing you to press escape and choose the level again. This feels like poor design. I'd prefer it if all mistakes were recoverable, but that might not be possible.

Would an undo button (as suggested above) sort this out?

4) On screen hints, maybe a tool tip type affair? At least a configurable one or something? I like the clean look it currently has an extra clutter worries me.

Other stuff:

Ah, the music, I love jazz - so um, there

I've no idea about the applet caching bug, I'm told it's fixed in the latest lwjgl applet release which I haven't upgraded to yet.

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I made a level with several conveyors and loads of putties, and they started moving INTO each other, so several putties were on the same tile. I couldn't move them after that.

Have you got the level file handy? It should be in your home directory under ".putty". Obviously sounds bugged to hell, level just makes it easier to see

Feature wise, theres a bunch of stuff coming. Recolouring the blobs generally is too loose for me, there will be white putty that will absorb the colour that is merged into it though.

It's coming along, more features first then more levels, honest

I've ideas for freezers, kill tiles, evil putty that follows you around and lifts.

Thanks again for the feedback, I'll post as and when new levels come up.

Nice I'm totally stuck on level 3 though, can't seem to do anything other than merge the two blue and then fall through the unstable block. Hints? Am I supposed to be able to merge it really quickly? My reactions aren't quite up to that.

One last suggestion, then I'll shut up. Don't describe the "split" operation in the opening tutorial. Introduce it during a later level in which it is actually needed. That way there's one less thing for beginners to memorize.Simon

Another thought:Sometimes when I want a straight line of the putty, I move the mouse too fast for the game to register the individual tiles, and this feels clunky. If I move the mouse fast up four tiles in a four tile putty, it feels like it should fill all four tiles.

Ok this game seems really cool and is actually unique as a puzzle game (which is rare), but I am absolutely stuck on level three and it's rather frustrating. I figured out how to right click a blob onto the "unstable" platform and get three blobs on the bottom, but from there I have no idea how to join up with the last fourth blob on top, which I'm pretty sure is necessary and seems entirely stuck. I can blob up so that I'm touching it, but there's no way to join with it at that point. Unless I'm missing something really obvious with the controls.

Sigh, nvm, I actually got it before looking at your reply. Felt really really stupid when I did. And by saying I got it, I mean I showed someone else the game and he was like "can't you use that thing?" and I was like "oh".

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